Designing Calm Technology

Calm Technology is a framework for designing ubiquitous devices that engage our attention in an appropriate manner. The aim of Calm Technology is to provide principles that follow the human lifestyle and environment in mind, allowing technology to amplify humanness instead of taking it away.

This workshop will cover how to use principles of Calm Technology to design the next generation of connected devices. We’ll look at notification styles, compressing information into other senses, and designing for the least amount of cognitive overhead.

Structure and activities

Students will work in groups to solve a series of design challenges, including designing new products, ‘calming down’ a complex ones, communicating the principles of Calm Technology across an organization and team, and entering a product successfully into the marketplace.

You’ll learn how to:

Use principles of Calm Technology to design the next generation of connected devices.

Design appropriate notification systems into both physical and software products

Communicate the principles of Calm Technology to your across your organization and team

Use methods of Calm Technology to design technology for generations, not seasons.

Enter your product successfully into the marketplace.

Who is the workshop for?

This workshop is for anyone that actively builds or makes decisions about technology, especially user experience designers, product designers, managers, creative directors and developers. Attendees are encouraged to have some background in user experience design and look at http://calmtech.com/ or Designing Calm Technology before the workshop.

Bringing a laptop is not required, as work will be done on paper and in groups.